Effect of substrate particle size on burrowing of the juvenile freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera margaritifera

Abstract

Juveniles of the endangered freshwater pearl mussel (FPM, Margaritifera margaritifera) live burrowed in stream substrate for the first years of their life. Fine sediments block water exchange within substrate and may cause juvenile mortality and recruitment failure. To better understand the connection between success of juvenile FPM and substrate particle size, it would be important to understand behavioural responses of FPM to varying substrate sizes at this critical life stage. We placed newly detached FPM juveniles in a 7-mm layer of sieved sand sorted into five sizes (< 120, 120–200, 200–250, 250–500 and 500–650 µm) each with 10 replicate dishes, 10 juveniles per dish, with burrowing status monitored for 96 h. Mean dish-specific proportion burrowed (PB) was significantly affected by substrate size, increasing from 52% in the finest sand to 98% in the coarsest sand. Furthermore, the significant substrate × time interaction was observed due to dropped PB (30-34%) in finest sand at 2–4 h time points. Thus, results suggest a clear behavioural response by juvenile FPM to substrate size, with fine sediments triggering surfacing behaviour. Surfacing may indicate stress, can increase predation risk, and expose to drift and/or enable drift of juveniles.